Microsoft Intelligent Cloud, including Azure, is now the largest segment

Satya Nadella speaks at the World Economic Forum 2016 in Davos, Switzerland.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

The era of Azure is approaching.

For the first time in more than three years, Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud reporting segment, which includes Azure Public Cloud, which competes with market leader Amazon Web Services, has more of Microsoft's overall revenue than the other two segments : Productivity and business processes that include Office, and Personal Computing that include Windows.

The Intelligent Cloud segment includes several products other than Azure, including SQL Server and Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, Consulting and Support.

However, Azure benefits from a secular shift to the cloud that has benefited other companies, including Alibaba, Google, IBM, and Oracle.

Azure's growth remains at 64% on an annualized basis in the fourth fiscal quarter, although it does not double every year, as it did in 201

6. Companies that bought software from Microsoft, yes, Rs have started to roll out Azure. AT & T announced earlier this week its plan to relocate workloads to Azure.

Meanwhile, traditional products in the Intelligent Cloud category are growing. The end of support for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 led to growth of server products in the Intelligent Cloud.

Microsoft uses the three most recent reporting segments since the first quarter of fiscal 2016 or the third quarter of 2015. Previously, Microsoft used two main reporting segments: Commercial and Devices and Consumer.